Related papers: Bayesian Shape Reconstruction and Optimal Guidance…

In recent years, understanding asteroids has shifted from light worlds to geological worlds by exploring modern spacecraft and advanced radar and telescopic surveys. However, flyby in 2029 will be an opportunity to conduct an internal…

The method of weighted least squares is widely used in parameter estimation problems such as asteroid orbit determination. A key difficulty is the treatment of observational uncertainties, especially when combining heterogeneous datasets…

The science and origins of asteroids is deemed high priority in the Planetary Science Decadal Survey. Major scientific goals for the study of planetesimals are to decipher geological processes in SSSBs not determinable from investigation…

Short-arc orbit determination is crucial when an asteroid is first discovered. In these cases usually the observations are so few that the differential correction procedure may not converge. We have developed an initial orbit computation…

This paper considers the coupled orbit and attitude dynamics of a dumbbell spacecraft around an asteroid. Geometric methods are used to derive the coupled equations of motion, defined on the configuration space of the special Euclidean…

When new objects are detected in the sky, an orbit determination needs to be performed immediately to find out their origin, to determine the probability of an Earth impact and possibly also to estimate the impact region on Earth. ESA's…

Analytical approximations are commonly employed in the initial trajectory design phase of a mission to rapidly explore a broad design space. In the context of an asteroid deflection mission, accurately predicting deflection is crucial to…

Exploration of asteroids and comets can give insight into the origins of the solar system and can be instrumental in planetary defence and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Asteroids, due to their low gravity are a challenging target for…

With the boost in the number of spacecraft launches in the current decades, the space debris problem is daily becoming significantly crucial. For sustainable space utilization, the continuous removal of space debris is the most severe…

More than a half of asteroids in the main belt have irregular shapes with the ratios of the minor to major axis lengths less than 0.6. One of the mechanisms to create such shapes is collisions between asteroids. The relationship between…

The recent growing interest in small solar system bodies such as asteroids and comets for scientific inspection, exploitation of resources, and planetary defense reasons is pushing the development of innovative engineering solutions to…

Understanding the dynamical evolution of asteroids through the secular Yarkovsky effect requires the determination of many physical properties, including the rotation period. We propose a method aimed at obtaining a robust determination of…

We describe a new iteration method to estimate asteroid coordinates, which is based on the subpixel Gaussian model of a discrete object image. The method operates by continuous parameters (asteroid coordinates) in a discrete observational…

In asteroid rendezvous missions, the dynamical environment near the asteroid's surface should be made clear prior to the mission launch. However, most of the asteroids have irregular shapes, which lower the efficiency of calculating their…

Accurate astrometry is crucial for determining orbits of near-Earth-asteroids (NEAs) and therefore better tracking them. This paper reports on a demonstration of 10 milliarcsecond-level astrometric precision on a dozen NEAs using the Pomona…

We aim at providing a preliminary approach on the dynamics of a spacecraft in orbit about the asteroid (99942) Apophis during its Earth close approach. The physical properties from the polyhedral shape of the target are derived assigning…

The knowledge of the orbit or the ephemeris uncertainty of asteroid presents a particular interest for various purposes. These quantities are for instance useful for recovering asteroids, for identifying lost asteroids or for planning…

Current practice for asteroid close proximity maneuvers requires extremely accurate characterization of the environmental dynamics and precise spacecraft positioning prior to the maneuver. This creates a delay of several months between the…

Deflecting an asteroid from an Earth impact trajectory requires only small velocity changes, typically of the order of microns per second, if done many years ahead of time. For this, a highly precise method of determining the need,…

In the past decade, hundreds of asteroid shape models have been derived using the lightcurve inversion method. At the same time, a new framework of 3-D shape modeling based on the combined analysis of widely different data sources such as…